21
A Long-Distance Relationship
Ha, ha, ha. Look at you, all screwed up in restraints of your own making. But my humour disguises something else: anger.
Even now, I’m angry at you. And do you know why? Because I’m sitting here in the future, and there’s nothing I can do about your situation. When were you going to wake up and stop suppressing your feelings? (There, that feels better.)
See, what I did there was to let it out. I still struggle to let it out compassionately — especially where you are concerned — but I think this is the hardest lesson. I still feel frustration and anger on a daily basis. It happens a lot when you have two toddlers! I am learning compassion with them; ironically, I rarely treat them as harshly as I treat myself. And that’s how I learn. Nowadays when I look at my own actions, I imagine they might be my child’s actions and try to help, rather than condemn, myself.
Anger always stems from powerlessness. But whether or not you can do anything to change the situation, you can always change the way you express it and your experience of it. Never by suppressing the anger, though. The anger masks everything else until you let it out somehow. Anger, especially suppressed anger, will put you in survival mode, flooding your body with adrenaline. It shuts off all but the most necessary parts of yourself, sending logic and reason flying. This is why anger has a bad name…but I don’t agree with its reputation.
You can’t selectively numb your anger, any more than you can turn off all lights in a room, and still expect to see the light.
~ Shannon L. Alder
You see, you cannot suppress just one single emotion; it doesn’t work that way. Cut one off, and you cut them all off. Emotions are signals. Our bodily reactions to them are what help us survive.
Your anger masked fear, which needed to be addressed. By suppressing your anger in an attempt to be “wise,” you were being just the opposite. Fortunately for you, anger comes out in mysterious ways. You can’t keep a lid on it forever. You’ll get angry about an eggplant in a few chapters’ time — screamingly, illogically angry. I know, it sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? It was. If only you’d let it out sooner.
Acknowledge your anger. Be conscious that you are angry. And find a way to let your anger out without insulting. The more constructively you learn to deal with it, the less power it will hold over you in the future.